ABSTRACT
The ancient Egyptian ideal of their society was to some degree defined by violence, not its absence, and this image itself would not have worked in ancient Egypt, for the concept of violence as a category that could be opposed to non-violence did not exist. Kingship did not legitimize violence; violence needed no legitimacy, it was part of life. Rather, a monopoly on scripted types of violence legitimized the king. The differences in the use and apparent meaning of battle and triumph scenes demonstrates how much the category "imagery of violence" is the author's own, and not intrinsic to the Egyptian material. In recent world, images of violence can cause intense emotional reactions, and people recognize that this is one reason why they are powerful. A visual allusion to Waterloo can lead to outrage, a political cartoon to anger and sadness, a beheading video to disgust and fear.
